


Let Me Take Your Coat And This Weight Off Of Your Shoulders

by allonsy_gabriel



Series: Another 51 [37]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Anxious Aziraphale (Good Omens), Attempt at Humor, Caring Aziraphale (Good Omens), Extended Metaphors, I Can't Believe I Wrote This, M/M, Nonsense, Pretentious, Symbolism, This Is STUPID, Why Did I Write This?, he cares about his coat so damn much, i'm gonna come right out and say it, just the most ham-handed symbolism you've ever seen, please god forgive me of these sins, this is so dumb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2021-01-06 05:16:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21221192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allonsy_gabriel/pseuds/allonsy_gabriel
Summary: Sometimes, a coat is not just a coat.Or, well, it is. It's still just wool and silk and brass buttons. There's nothing special about it, not on any molecular or atomic level.But things are more than just collections of proton and neutron clusters orbited by spinning electrons.There is meaning behind the things that litter the Earth. A dove means peace. A white flag means surrender. A heart means love. A skull means death.An aubergine, according to Crowley, means something incredibly inappropriate, and should not be sent to indicate what one intends to order for dinner.And a camelback coat, knee length and free of stain or spot or wrinkle, means quite a lot.





	Let Me Take Your Coat And This Weight Off Of Your Shoulders

**Author's Note:**

> this is literally just  
a mess

Sometimes, a coat is not just a coat.

Or, well, it is. It's still just wool and silk and brass buttons. There's nothing  _ special _ about it, not on any molecular or atomic level.

But things are more than just collections of proton and neutron clusters orbited by spinning electrons.

There is  _ meaning  _ behind the things that litter the Earth. A dove means peace. A white flag means surrender. A heart means love. A skull means death.

An aubergine, according to Crowley, means something  _ incredibly  _ inappropriate, and should not be sent to indicate what one intends to order for dinner.

And a camelback coat, knee-length and free of stain or spot or wrinkle, means quite a lot.

When Aziraphale had first obtained the coat, he hadn't spoken to Crowley in six years. In fact, he hadn't even  _ heard _ of the demon in six years. Usually, in those long (and ever more infrequent) periods of silence between meetings, he would at least hear whispers of nefarious (or not so nefarious) deeds being performed by a man with red hair and a black suit, a man who wore tinted lenses even in the darkest night.

Not that time.

That time, there was silence.

And, although the angel would never have admitted it at the time,  _ loneliness _ .

The coat was purchased from a tailor down the street for £75, and settled upon Aziraphale's shoulders with a comfortable weight. There was something about it, something about the love and care that was woven into every stitch.

Something about the  _ newness _ of it. The coat had never been seen by piercing yellow eyes. It did not know of oysters or Shakespearean plays or the sweetness of Parisian crepes.

It knew only of the slope of an angel's back, the curvature of shoulders designed to support the weight of feathers and sinew and bone.

It was warm.

It may not have known of Crowley then, but it would learn of him soon. 

The coat stayed through the Great War, sat upon Aziraphale's shoulders as he sat in the stinking filthy tents along the battlefields, pouring out miracles and medicine in equal measure.

It stayed through the lively raucous of the twenties as the angel sat in at clubs and concerts and restaurants, watching as the world sped through changes, as whole new genres of art and music bloomed around him.

It stayed as the angel stood behind the counter of a soup kitchen, handing out crusts of bread and cups of broth to men in threadbare suits and worn-through shoes.

It stayed through meetings that made Aziraphale's stomach turn, as he stumbled back to the bookshop with his mind reeling, as he told himself that he was  _ helping _ , he was going to  _ stop it _ , that it was  _ all according to plan _ . Not  _ The Plan _ , perhaps, but  _ a plan _ .

It stayed as Aziraphale saw the best of humanity, and it stayed as he saw the worst of it.

It survived a German bomb, the collapse of a church. It stayed as the last of an angel's stubborn walls crumbled along with the stone walls around him.

It brushed against the sleeve of a black linen suit as a leather satchel was passed from the hands of the infernal to the hands of the divine.

The coat met Crowley again and again, dozens of times over dozens of years. It met him over holy water exchanges and dinners at the Ritz and drunken conversations in dusty bookshops. It met him on park benches and in old black cars and the little shack set aside for the gardener behind an official London residence.

The coat stuck to the angel like a second skin, old and worn-in and unyielding as the best-made armor.

Aziraphale could hardly remember what it was to step outside the bookshop without it on.

And then to have it  _ ruined _ , struck by bright blue paint that seeped into the fabric, that couldn’t  _ possibly _ have ever come out, irreparable, unsalvagable, stained and tarnished and—

Saved. Saved by a puff of air, by a tender heart, by someone who saw it for what it was, really, deep down and decided that, though it was a bit odd, a bit old fashioned, a bit  _ soft _ , it was still of value, still of worth, still deserved to be redeemed—

Well. It was a  _ good coat _ .

(For it is the coat we’re talking about, of course.  _ Just  _ the coat. Lengthy, overly-verbose extended metaphors really are  _ quite _ tedious. Not worth the hassle, in Aziraphale’s opinion. He’d even told William that, way back when.)

(He hadn’t listened. Obviously.)

The coat didn’t exist there for a moment, disintegrated in a pillar of heavenly light, but it was back soon enough, pulled out of the ether with its owner’s corporation, as essential as the heart.

(Possibly even  _ more  _ essential, all things considered.)

And so the coat stayed in its spot over Aziraphale’s shoulders as the world failed to end, as it ruffled around with the feathers and the sinew and the bone.

It stayed throughout a bus ride, and it once again brushed against the sleeve of a black linen suit jacket, but this time it stayed there as infernal and divine hands intertwined.

Through columns of hellfire, more elegant dinners and more drunken conversations, more rides in an old black car, the coat stayed.

Someday soon, Aziraphale will take off the coat. He will brush the sleeves free of dust and lint, will smooth wrinkles and check for spots.

He will hang it on a hook beside the front door of a cottage by the sea.

The coat will hang there as an angel and a demon sit together by the fire. It will hang as the demon reaches out an arm and pulls the angel closer. It will hang as the angel reaches, cups the demon’s face in his hands, draws him down, open and vulnerable and  _ safe _ , and presses a gentle kiss to the demon’s lips.

And Aziraphale won’t put the coat back on for a good, long while.

But he won’t get rid of it.

Because sometimes, a coat isn’t just a coat.

**Author's Note:**

> you know, sometimes you just gotta fucking write, even though you don't feel like it and even though the words just won't go. sometimes, the best thing to do, the only thing to do, is to write Something, to write Anything, to Put The Words On Paper (or google document) and Keep Moving. it's the only option you have, it's All You've Got, and so you sit alone at your kitchen table at 10 p.m. and you eat your bland as fuck chicken breast and you pet your cat and you Write That Shit because you have to
> 
> sometimes, that's just life


End file.
